America has been known as the land of opportunity for as long as I can remember. Itâs the one place in the world where if you bare down and work your nose to the grindstone, you can make a better life for your family and yourself.

And while everyone in Tennessee works hard, thereâs a certain part of the Volunteer State that takes the Puritan work ethic to the extreme â the hardest working places in Tennessee .

Whoâs the leader of this work around the clock ethos? That would be Arlington which takes top honors for the hardest working place in Tennessee. People work so hard there they manage to make getting to work a job.

So what other places burn the midnight oil to bring home a large piece of bacon? Youâre going to have to get to the office early and stay late on Fridays to beat out these places in Tennessee for a promotion:

How We Determined The Hardest Working Places In The Volunteer State

Like all problems here at Zippia, we start with the data to answer the hard questions. Some might even consider us the hardest working data-crunchers this side of the Mississippi.

In this particular case, we went to the latest version of the American Community Survey looking for answers. As luck would have it, the Census Bureau just released the 2009-2014 5-Yr Estimate which would make this analysis the first of itâs kind with the new data.

After scrolling through what seemed like hundreds of criteria, we settled on this set for each State:

Average hours worked

Average commute time

Workers per household (Employed labor force divided by the number households)

Labor force participation rate

Adults with a college degree

Our thinking went something along the lines of if you are spent the many years getting a degree, are actively seeking employment, work a ton of hours when employed, and spend forever getting to work, you get the Zippia hardworking stamp of approval.

After we got the data for all 105 places in Tennessee, we ranked each place from 1 to 105 for each of the criteria with 1 being the âhardest workingâ.

Next, we averaged the rankings for each to create a hardworking index.

Finally, we crowned the place with the lowest hard working index the âHardest Working Place In Tennesseeâ. And, at the end of the day, Arlington had itâs hard work pay off.

Read the detailed chart below to learn a bit more about why each place ranked where it did.